But all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped against hope.

All that they could learn was that the child and her parents came on board at New Orleans, where they had just arrived in a vessel from Cuba; that they looked like people from the Atlantic States; that the family name was Van Brunt and the child's name Laura.

This was all.

The parents had not been seen since the explosion.

The child's manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and finer than any Mrs.Hawkins had ever seen before.
As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain at their heart-strings as the sufferings of this little desolate creature.